


Reading The Appointment In Samarra

by nicolai



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 20:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9202808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicolai/pseuds/nicolai
Summary: Connie has English homework and reads The Appointment in Samarra aloud, they discuss it.





	

“Steven!” Connie greeted him, quickly running up the steps to his house, her feet lighting briefly on each step and her hair flowing in a billowy cloud behind her until she came to a stop just in front of him. 

“Connie!” Steven opened his arms for his friend, bringing them round her back and nuzzling his face briefly into her soft, dark hair. 

“So, what are we going to do today? Sword training? Going on a mission?” Connie bounced on her heels, eager for what the day had in store for them. 

Gesturing for her to follow him, Steven turned and walked inside. He shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t know, it depends on what you want to do, I guess. Pearl isn’t here to train with, she’s gone out somewhere. She wouldn’t say where-”

“She’s on a date,” Garnet’s calm voice interrupted him from the couch where she appeared to just be staring at the ceiling, though it wasn’t possible to see through her visor, so her gaze could have been directed anywhere. 

“Oh!” Steven exclaimed, “With the Mystery girl?”

Garnet gave a thumbs up before leaning back on the couch and crossing her arms over her chest. 

“That’s so cool!” Steven’s hands flew up over his head in a triumphant gesture as his eyes turned to stars, “Anyway, Connie? I thought we could just hang out?”

“Oh, okay,” Connie smiled, following Steven up to his bed to relax, “I do have some English homework I could work on.”

“Can I help?” Steven asked, as grateful as he was to not have to attend formal school, he was frequently interested in the things that Connie was doing. 

“Well, sure. I have to fill out a worksheet and prepare for a quiz on The Appointment in Samarra. I can also write a small essay on it for extra credit. Which, I should probably do because my mom doesn’t really like it when I don’t have over 100% in my classes,” Connie explained, giggling slightly at her mom’s absurdly high standards and getting the binder with the worksheets out of her backpack. 

Steven flopped down on the floor on his back, resting his legs up on the bed and leaning his head back on his hands. He looked at Connie, who was lying on her stomach, propped on her elbows, with the open binder slightly in front of her. His shirt had ridden up slightly to reveal his gem and her blouse was scrunched beneath her, allowing it to puff out in front. 

“How can I help?” he asked, beaming up at her. 

“Well, I can read you the story and we can talk about it, that would help with an essay, I think,” she suggested, knowing full well that he could simply read it himself, but she liked reading aloud enough to take the opportunity if it presented itself. 

“Story time!” Steven shouted, his eyes gleaming. 

“Okay, the speaker is Death. There was a merchant-” Connie started, only to be interrupted by Amethyst crashing in from the kitchen, carrying a bag of marshmallows, celery sticks, and sriracha. 

“Wait! I wanna hear too!” she’d missed the preceding conversation and only heard Steven’s exclamation, but she was bored and thought it might be fun to be included.

“Oh, okay Amethyst. It’s just for my English homework, but sure!” Connie waited until Amethyst had settled into the floor beside Steven and started making celery marshmallow kabobs with sriracha on top before restarting the story. 

“The speaker is Death. There was a merchant in Baghdad, who sent his servant to buy some provisions from the marketplace,” she began, glancing at Amethyst in confusion when she saw a raised hand, “Yes?”

“Servants are like how pearls are on Homeworld, right? Like, they belong to people and obey them and stuff?” Amethyst asked, shoving one of her kabobs in her mouth. 

“Yeah, I think so. I don’t know that much about pearls, but servants are people who have somebody that they serve, which means doing things for them, obeying orders, things like that. Like slaves, but sometimes there are differences and sometimes people use servant because it’s more euphemistic,” Connie said thoughtfully. 

Amethyst nodded and leaned down to use Steven’s stomach as a pillow. 

“Anyway,” Connie resumed, “The servant came back quickly, pale and trembling. The servant said “Master, just now, as I was in the marketplace, a woman jostled me! I looked and saw that it was Death. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture- yes, Steven?” she’d seen that Steven had his hand up this time. 

“What kind of threatening gesture?” he asked. 

“Well… I’m not actually sure. Maybe like she was about to hit the servant or something?” Connie shrugged. 

“Okay! Keep reading!” Steven nodded, picking a small bit of clean marshmallow from Amethysts snack. 

“Okay, so the servant went on to say “Lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra, and there, Death will not find me-”

“Where are those places? Samarra, and what was it? Somethin’ about a bag?” Amethyst interrupted. 

Connie giggled, she hadn’t expected so many questions, or really to have such an audience. It was nice though, because she knew the answer, having looked up the answer herself earlier that afternoon. “Baghdad is in Iraq, it’s the capital city. And Samarra is also in Iraq, about 70 miles away from it. Those are in the Middle East.”

“Oh, okay, I think I’ve heard of that!” Amethyst nodded again. 

“This is a very old story too, so it wouldn’t look like it did back then today. People don’t ride horses places most of the time now,” Connie giggled, and once her audience had nodded and settled back down, she resumed the story, “The merchant lent the servant his horse and the servant galloped away as fast as the horse could go. Then the merchant when down to the marketplace himself to get his provisions. He saw me standing in the crowd and came up to me, he asked “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?” “That was not a threatening gesture,” I said, “It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him today in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”

“Whaaaat?” Steven’s eyes grew impossibly large as his mouth fell open in shock, “But he went there to get away from Death!” he started laughing, “That’s so funny! Death already knew he’d be there!”

“Does she have future vision?” Garnet called from the couch. 

“I don’t think so, G, she was surprised to see him in Baghdad. So, like, she only knows one thing maybe?” Amethyst shrugged, “I don’t know. I didn’t know you were listening.” 

“It was interesting. I know that you all come to terms with it and a lot of the art is to help with that, but it seems that, for such short lived creatures, you think of death often. Doesn’t it scare you?” Garnet asked thoughtfully. 

Connie shrugged, “Sometimes. But “though life is merely a journey to the grave, it must not be undertaken without hope,” that’s from a video game I like, Persona 3. But it really is like that. We all know we’re dying, sooner than we want to usually, but we still carry on with some hope because we know there are plenty of things bigger than us that will last long into the future and plenty of things to have while we’re here.”  
“Humans are weird,” Amethyst shrugged, “But this story is cool. Like, he makes it happen by being afraid. And that happens a lot. You gotta accept things,” she nodded with certainty, finishing off her sriracha covered marshmallows.

“I think it’s really cool that Death is a woman though,” Steven said, sitting up and learning on his hands, “Like, the Grim Reaper is a guy, I thought, but they have a different one, I guess? And she’s a girl! And that’s super cool representation, right Connie?” he thought she’d like it, as they’d spoke frequently about representation of girls and women in the media and Connie always seemed really passionate about it. 

“Yeah!” Connie nodded, “I was thinking about writing my essay about that through the lens of female empowerment. Death isn’t really portrayed as the antagonist here because she is the speaker and we’re meant to accept her in some ways, so this is empowering representation because she’s such an important character that’s being portrayed as inevitable. Yes, the servant is afraid, but as the audience, we aren’t really meant to be.”

“Well, I’m out,” Amethyst giggled, “There’s some frozen burritos in the fridge that aren’t gonna eat themselves. That was a really cool story though, thanks.” 

“Any time, Amethyst. Thanks for talking about it with us,” Connie smiled, sitting up on the bed to fill out the worksheet, “And thanks, Steven. It’s fun to read to you and talk about it.”

“I had fun too! Let me know when you’re about to start the essay and we can talk more,” he nodded, turning his attention to a video game to allow her to focus on what she was writing.


End file.
